Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, in this interview with TAIWO OGUNMOLA, says both the leaders and the led share in the blame for the rot in our society. He also contends that his party gained some positives in the recent governorship election in Ondo State in which it came third.
What lessons can our leaders learn from the sacrifice paid by Prophet Ibrahim many years ago?
You have said it all – sacrifice; we should be prepared to pay whatever sacrifice is required of us by Almighty Allah and the sacrifices expected of us as leaders. Leaders are supposed to be servants; that is a sacrifice, but not servants by mouth -? servants in spirit, in the body and in the thinking and even in deed. That is exactly the lessons we are supposed to imbibe.
Judging by what you said, would you say our leaders have imbibed the sacrifice of Prophet Ibrahim?
I think it is time the leaders and the led became realistic about this; we should not look at the leaders as if they belong to another society or different from all others. We should come together, reason together to move this nation forward. I have often said? that our leaders of yesterday did not come from the moon.
The ones that we have today are not from any other planet or country; they are Nigerians and tomorrow we are still expected to have leaders from Nigeria. If those who were there the day before yesterday, we have complaint about them and those who were there yesterday, we have complaint about them, and those who are there now, we still have reasons to complain that they are not doing it right, then, as a nation, as a people, we should re-assess ourselves, our values and what we stand for as a society.
It is disheartening that many years after our independence we are still at the stage we are today. I think it is not just a question of the leaders now, but that of the society as a whole. Of course, someone is supposed to lead and others to follow, but in situations like this, from history, we know that even those who are not partisan, in some situations they lead a revolt and the society gets better; and who knows if the revolt that we will have in Nigeria would not be the one that would cost millions of lives or the one that would peacefully change the nation.
It is for all of us, not just Mr. President, not just Mr. Governor, not just Mr. Speaker, local government chairman or a councillor, but all of us: we all have to change our attitude; we need to retrace our steps; we need to go back to where we were just few years ago. Our values have changed drastically from what they used to be; from where we had progress, peace; from where the society enjoyed much when we had less. Today we have more and we suffer more. It is for all of us to have a re-think.
How would react to the linking of Senators Zanna, Ndume and Modu Sherrif to Boko Haram?
I think it (investigation) is still at an ongoing stage. That has been the allegation; till today, no court has really gone ahead to complete the trial of these people, so as a lawmaker, I would not like to pass judgement by myself; I leave the court to do so, but if elected leaders of the people are found to be the enemies of the people, that leaves much to be desired.
I think it is still going back to what we said: people must have seen one quality or the other (in them) before electing them, if these qualities are not what they are displaying, and we need to call these people to question. But if they got the mandate of the people and they want to go their own way, we need to put them to judgement.
Your party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), has suffered two major setbacks in the last two months. First, it lost the local government election in Ikoyi/Obalende, Lagos, through an election tribunal and,? two, it lost the last guber election in Ondo State;? what is your position on this?
Let me correct an impression: losing an election through a tribunal is an incomplete process; there is still a procedure in place. Until the final judgement comes, you cannot say we have suffered a setback. The Chairman of Ikoyi/Obalende from the ACN is still the chairman until it is finally determined by the court.
On the other hand, in Ondo State, my party did not suffer any setback; in fact, we made progress, and you need to understand this. A year or two ago, ACN was not on ground in Ondo State; it was a case between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party, but today, in a question of weeks, ACN was able to prove? that it is a party to reckon with; that we can get to any state of the federation and we can make our presence felt even in days.
And that is what has happened in Ondo State. Go back and see what has happened there: if an incumbent could not score twice the vote that we scored, that leaves much to be desired because the Labour Party candidate had been governor of the state for over three years. Look at the stories of the governors of the ACN, look at Lagos – Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola won his re-election with about 82%; the same thing happened in Edo State.
That is a party that works for the people. They will come out en masse to vote and re-elect a state governor that has worked. The honest truth is, the Labour Party did not win that election if you look at it critically. If an incumbent governor could not win 50% in his state, I don’t see that as a victory.
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